


A Life Worth Living

by roslinadamasinequanon



Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, F/M, no dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 18:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13106208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roslinadamasinequanon/pseuds/roslinadamasinequanon
Summary: An alternative ending to the Conspiracy Theory arc in which Sharon Raydor DOES NOT DIE. Based on "It's a Wonderful LIfe" with a little Christmas magic thrown in as well.





	A Life Worth Living

**Author's Note:**

> Because I still can't bear the thought of her dying...  
> Starts out angsty but I promise there is a happy payoff at the end.

“Who are you” Sharon looked up from her laptop to see a vaguely familiar man entering her office.

“Clarence Odbody.”

“What? “ She had to be dreaming. “The angel from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’? “

“In the flesh, so to speak.”

“Oh, this can’t be real.”

“I’m afraid it is. We saw you in church today receiving last rites. You’ve given up on life.”

Sharon shut the laptop. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know more than you think. As I said, you have given up on life. What I’d like to know is, why? You love your work. You were promoted to Commander and have a team who would follow you through fire. You have three beautiful children who need you. You finally found true love with a man who thinks the sun rises and sets on you, and you say you are the happiest you’ve ever been. Why wouldn’t you fight to keep that?”

Sharon looked over at the wedding picture of her whole family, her eyes swimming with tears. “Because I’ve become what I never wanted to be…a burden. My husband’s heart can’t take the continual stress of my health issues. He’s trying so hard to be strong but I can see it is breaking him up inside. My kids…oh my God, my kids. “She had to pause choking back a sob. “My two older kids have to keep putting their lives on hold and flying across the country every time I have a set back. That just isn’t fair to them. And Rusty, every time he looks at me I see the fear and the worry. He should me looking forward to law school not constantly worrying about me. And my team? They can’t focus on their cases because they are so worried about me. I’ve become a hindrance. They would all have been better off if I‘d just died in the ambulance the first time I collapsed.”

“Do you really believe that?” 

She nodded. 

“Then I need you to come with me.” Sharon glanced at the hand he held out to her. Was she really going to follow this strange man? As if on it’s own volition, her hand reached for his. It looked like she was. He opened the door to her office and she was in the murder room. It looked the same, and yet it didn’t. She did not recognize anyone but Cami, who was sitting at Julio’s desk.

“Where is everyone?” She asked, her eyes immediately moving to Andy’s, then Provenza, Tao’s and Amy’s desks. Who were those people sitting there?” 

“Gone.”

“Gone? How can they call be gone?”

In an instant, Sharon was no longer at the PAB. She was in a nursing home and sitting in front of her was Louie Provenza, her salty, curmudgeon lieutenant. Only that man was gone. SSitting strapped into a wheelchair was a gaunt, elderly man, his eyes lifeless. Patrice was kneeling at his side stroking his hand but she was not receiving any kind of recognition from her actions.

“Lieutenant!” Sharon started to stride forward but Clarence grabbed her. “He can’t see you or hear you.”

“What do you mean? What happened to him?”

“Two years ago at your funeral---”

“Wait a minute. My funeral? I’m dead?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Sharon squirmed. Was it?

“Yes, well, your funeral was quite overwhelming. The outpouring of grief was like nothing anyone had ever seen. And your lieutenant, well, like your husband, he suffers from high blood pressure. In his grief, he did not take his medication for days and the night of your funeral, he suffered a massive stroke. He is paralyzed on his left side and cannot communicate.”

A lump filled Sharon’s throat. Oh Louie. “I never meant for this to happen.”

“Well, we can’t control what happens once we are gone.”

A frantic thought hit her. “Andy, what happened to my Andy?” 

“We’ll get there. We have a few more stops first.”

In another instant, Sharon was in one of the seediest parts of LA, in a dive bar. Loud music pulsated in her ears, strippers danced on the tables.

“Who on earth could be here? Not Andy, surely.

Clarence turned her and Sharon nearly gasped. There was Julio in a torn muscle shirt; arms tattooed slamming a man into a wall.

“What’s going on, what happened to him?”

“Julio was the one who gave you CPR. He got your heart started again, but they lost it in the ambulance. He relives that day over and over and over. He still hears your husband begging you to fight, begging you not to leave him and he feels like let you both down. He couldn’t save you. Losing his wife, his child, his brother, his mother and then the boss he admired so much, who looked out for him, it was too much. He was filled with rage again and he didn‘t have you to look out for him, to calm him down. He beat a suspect to a pulp and was fired from the LAPD. Because of his anger issues, Mark was taken from him and he started working here as a bouncer. Julio hates the world and this is a place where he can take his anger out on a daily basis.”

“Oh, no..no..no. Julio and Mark. I did this to them? Julio was finally happy and Mark had a home.”

“We never know how people are going to react to loss.”

“Please take me away.” She couldn’t watch any more of this. She turned away and when she looked back, she was in a hospital setting, in a rehab area. 

“Where are we?”

“Walter Reed Hospital.”

“The veteran’s hospital? Why?” 

Clarence pointed to an area in the corner and Sharon gave a start. “Amy,” she breathed. There was Amy Sykes, her athletic detective maneuvering along parallel bars, obviously in pain. She was missing a leg.

“How did that happen?” She asked

“After you died, Amy was so broken up. Like Julio, she thought of you like a big sister and as a mentor. Going to work every day without you there was just too hard for her, so she reenlisted.”

“What about Cooper?”

“They broke up. Amy just shut down after you died.”

Sharon shook her head. She had had no idea that she meant that much to the young woman. “How did that happen?”

“IED.”

“Oh…Damn…”

“Are you ready to see more?”

“Isn’t anyone happy?”

“Let’s go see.”

Clarence did his magic and this time Sharon was in a computer lab. There was Mike Tao, alone, typing away at a computer. He looked the same, she thought with relief.

“This doesn’t look so bad,” she said. 

“Looks can be deceiving. With you dying and with Provenza, Andy, Julio and Amy gone, Tao was the last holdout. However, without his family around him, going to work was so painful, so full of memories he couldn’t take it anymore. So, he retired and got this job here in the computer lab where he works alone. And he likes it that way. Losing all of you broke something inside him and he doesn’t ever want to let people get close to him. He had a family at work once and he lost them, he doesn’t want to go through that again.”

“Oh Mike.” Sharon reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder and realized that Clarence was right. He couldn’t see her and he couldn’t feel her. It was a terrible sensation for a tactile woman. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I just thought they’d go on.”

“Without you? Did you not realize how important you were to each and every member of your team?”

“I guess I didn’t.”

“They were all there with you when you died and it broke something in all of them.”

Sharon wiped at her eyes, accepting the handkerchief that Clarence handed her. It brought back a vivid memory of Andy handing her his handkerchief when she’d been crying over Rusty getting his college diploma. Those had been happy tears. She had told Andy and Rusty then that she was the happiest she’d ever been. Why had she lost sight of that? Why had she not chosen to fight for her life?”

“I want to see my family. Please, my husband and my kids.”

“Be patient, we have one more stop first.”

Sharon looked to Clarence with confusion. They were in a cemetery. He pointed to one of the graves and Sharon’s heart caught in her throat. 

“Buzz is dead? How?”

“After you died, he made it his goal to be a full fledged detective. He wanted to honor you in that way for all the help and encouragement that you gave him. He wanted so much for you to be proud of him. Too much. Without you and the lieutenants there to guide him, he took an unnecessary risk and was shot and killed in the line of duty.”

“Oh Buzz…” Sharon ran her fingers over the engraved name on the gravestone.

Clarence reached for her elbow. “Are you ready to see your family now?”

Fear leapt into Sharon’s eyes. Was she ready? Did she really want to see what her death had done to the ones she loved the most?

“I don’t think I want to.”

“That’s not an option.”

“Please don’t make me----”

Before she could continue her plea, she was in an office. Ricky was sitting at a desk in a suit. He was looking at a picture he had on his desk. It was a photo of him walking her down the aisle at her wedding to Andy. He had tears in his eyes. He looked so different, all the light and spark that was Ricky Raydor gone from the solemn man sitting before her.

“Ricky hated offices. He had his own business; he liked to be his own boss. Why is he here?”

“When you died, Ricky had an emotional breakdown. Knowing that you had medical options and chose not to take them and then brought upon your own death without ever bothering to even say good-bye to him was a hurt so deep no one could heal it. He never had a father growing up, but he always knew that he could count on you to be there for him, to do the right thing and he lost that when you died. He shut down completely and lost his business. He is just now trying to get his life back together. But he thinks about you every day, wondering if he had just told you how much he loved you and needed you and how much you meant to him more often, if it might have made you fight harder to live. He lives with guilt every day.”

“Oh Ricky, Ricky….“” She threw her arms around him, crying softly. She had to touch him, even if he couldn’t feel her. “I love you so much. None of this was your fault. I’m so sorry…”

Ricky continued to look at the picture unaware of his mother’s embrace.

“Take me away, please. I can’t stand not being able to comfort him.”

Clarence did so and when Sharon finally got herself together, she looked around to see herself in a tiny, rather dingy looking ballet studio. There was her lovely Emily, helping a youngster on the barre. She looked the same, only she didn’t. She was much thinner than she’d ever been, her eyes filled with sadness. Even her posture was different. She’d always had a dancer’s posture, straight and pure. Now her shoulders slumped forward, as if she were closing in on herself. 

“Why is she here and not in New York at ABT?”

“Like Ricky, when you died Emily went through a very heavy depression. Andy tried to help both of them, he had made that promise to you and he did try to keep it, but the grief your children experienced coupled with his own grief was too much for him. There were days Emily could not even drag herself out of bed and she was fired from ABT. She became anorexic and nearly died. Andy did get her back to LA and into a psychiatric facility and they saved her life. She’s working here now as a ballet teacher, but she is still struggling with very heavy depression. She misses you every day and like Ricky, she knows she had a father who did not love her enough to want to be part of her life and now she wonders why you didn’t love her enough to fight for your life.

“I DO love her enough! I did it for them! I didn’t want to be a burden to them! Please make them understand.”

“The time to talk to them about all of this was before you died, Sharon. It’s too late now.”

“Does Rusty feel the same? Does he think I didn’t love him enough?”

“That’s where we’re headed next.”

Sharon held her breath and closed her eyes, praying she would find her youngest in law school. When she finally opened her eyes, she recoiled in horror.

“NO!” she screamed the word. There was Rusty, his hair longer, looking scruffy and far more like the boy she’d first taken in than the mature young man she’d last remembered hugging in her office. He was standing on a street corner on Sunset taking money from a man and walking away with him.

“Why, oh my God WHY is he selling himself again. Why isn’t he in law school? Why didn’t Andy take care of him?” Sharon was sobbing now. All her hopes and dreams for that boy had just come crashing down on her.

“When you died, Rusty just gave up. Andy did try, but you know how Rusty is. He completely closed himself off. He quit working for Andrea and he never went to law school. He ran away from Andy’s guidance and ended up on the street again. You put whatever regard he had for himself there and when you made the decision to push yourself into a heart attack right in front of him, where he had to watch you die, it killed something inside him. He felt like if you could do that, he’d really meant nothing to you.”

“Oh, no, no…My kids, they meant everything to me. I did it for them! I didn’t want to be a burden.”

“Well, it looks like you were more of burden in death than you ever were in life. Are you ready to see Andy?”

She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and shook her head negatively. Somehow, given everything else she had seen today, she knew it would be bad.

‘You have to finish the journey, Sharon.”

As he’d said before, she had no control over this and when she opened her eyes this time, she was again in a cemetery and she was facing her worst nightmare. She was looking at her grave covered in flowers. It was the second anniversary of her death and there was a man leaning up against her headstone. He looked like a homeless person. He was wearing faded torn jeans and a dirty t-shirt. He had a beard and his hair was longer, dirty and unkempt. It was her GQ handsome husband. It was Andy Flynn and he had a bottle of whisky in his hand and tears streaming down his cheeks. He was talking to her grave.

“Two years babe…I still don’t know why…Why’d ya do it?...I told you all I wanted was you. Didn’t care about the illness…Just wanted, needed you…Still need you…I still hurt so bad, babe… Why’d you leave me alone?…Know I’m no prize but you said you loved me….Just not enough to stay with me I guess…How could you do it?..“ He paused to take a swig from the bottle. “How could you make me watch you die?…Didn’t you know how it would kill me?…I needed you to fight. ..Why didn’t ya fight…You were always a fighter…What made you just give up so easy?…I’ll never understand…I’d have been there by your side….Loved you so much. ..Still love you…Don’t wanna live without you…So sorry I let you down…Please don’t hate me for that. “

“He’s drinking.” Sharon looked at Clarence with utter dismay. “You said he followed my wishes. He tried to take care of my kids.”

“He did. He did the best he could. But it is hard to save others when you’re drowning yourself. He lost you, he lost Provenza, and he lost his job.”

“They fired him?”

“No, he retired. He couldn’t stand being there without seeing you in your office. Sharon, your death nearly killed him. The only thing that kept him alive was trying to fulfill the promise he made to you. He tried to be there for Ricky and for Emily--he did save her life by getting her to LA-- and for Rusty. But Rusty couldn’t face any of it and ran away, and the other two were just so broken. It was too much for one man to bear, especially a man who was drowning in his own grief. When Rusty ran away and Andy realized that he had failed you in the one thing you asked him to do, he started drinking again and he stopped taking care of himself. 

“Oh Andy…Andy….” She knelt by his side running her hand over his scruffy cheek, tears steaming down her face. “I’m so so sorry. “

“Honestly Sharon, he’s trying to drink himself to death, hoping to bring on another heart attack the way you brought on yours so he can join you in the afterlife. He just misses you too much to want to go on without you.”

“I was so wrong…so wrong. I should have fought I should have had the transplant. I had no idea. Oh, Andy…Andy….”

“Sharon…Sharon I’m right here.” She could feel his hand on her face, smell his spicy aftershave.

“Andy?” She blinked her eyes tiredly. 

“Hey, sweetheart. Nice to see those pretty green eyes again.”

She looked around confused. She was not in a cemetery; she was in her bedroom in the condo with Andy sitting on the bed beside her stroking her face. 

“You must have been having one doozy of a nightmare.”

“A nightmare?” She sat up. “It was just a nightmare? “ She threw her arms around Andy’s neck hugging him tightly, tears burning in her eyes. None of it had happened. She wasn’t dead. He wasn’t drinking again.

Then she remembered. She had come home from the church a little overwhelmed by her decision not to receive any medical intervention for her heart issue and to let the next attack take her so she would no longer be a burden to her family and she must have fallen asleep.

Her phone went off and she broke away from Andy to look at the text. “Hey Mom, just checking in. Are you on your way?” 

“Who is it?” Andy asked.

“Rusty. He’s at the PAB…with Andrea?”

“Yes,” Andy chuckled running his fingers through her hair. “You really fell asleep hard, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did.”

“Oh Andy. I love you so, so much. You know that right?”

He lifted her hand kissing the back of it. “I do.”

“I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to leave my kids. I’m going to fight. I’m going to call Dr. Bailey now. I want to be put on the heart transplant list. I have so much to live for, Andy.

“Yes, yes you do.” Andy’s smile was wide. Once the idea of a transplant had terrified him, but once he’d come to terms with it as the way of saving her life, the fact that Sharon was wavering on whether she would accept one or not had been far more terrifying.

+++++++++++++++++

“Sharon, I have some news I need to talk to you about.” Sharon reached for Andy’s hand, bracing herself as Dr. Bailey entered her hospital room. I don’t think you’re a candidate for a heart transplant anymore.”

“What?” Sharon’s smile faded, her hand tightening in Andy’s. She could feel him tense.

“Why isn’t she a candidate, you said she could move up and…”

“Wait wait,” Bailey put his hand up against Andy’s increasing anger. “This isn’t bad news. Since you’ve been here, the drugs we have been giving you have actually begun working. The disease is starting to reverse itself and I think that if we continue on the drug therapy we have a good chance of a complete recovery.”

“Oh my God.” Sharon’s whole body slumped in relief. This was not what she had been expecting to hear.

“But why weren’t the drugs working before?” Andy’s relief was just as strong but his detective instincts had gone into overdrive. 

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know how this could have happened, but we tested the vial of pills you got at the pharmacy and somehow you ended up with placebos.”

“Sugar pills?” Sharon questioned.

“Yes. I called your pharmacy and they are just as confused. The pharmacist who filled your order was brand new and the day after he filled your order, he quit.”

Sharon and Andy shared a look and they both said it at the same time. “Stroh.”

“I’m sorry. Stroh?”

“There’s a serial rapist and killer out there who is after anyone who was part of his arrest and capture. Two of those people are my wife and my stepson, “Andy explained.

“Stroh tried to kill me by giving me placebos?” Sharon was still shocked.

“I’m going to kill him Sharon.”

“Andy.” His name was a warning. A warning he didn’t heed.

“Whatever it takes, I’m going to hunt him down. He’s going to pay for this. He tried to kill you for Chrissake!” 

Sharon looked down at her wedding rings and closed her eyes. She had come so close to letting herself die, without knowing she could be cured and live a long full life. Thank you, Clarence she said to herself. Even if he’d just been a dream, he’d saved her life. 

“You’re welcome, Sharon.” She looked up with surprise to see Clarence behind Dr. Bailey’s shoulder. She looked at Andy but it was obvious he was not seeing the man. “Live a long, happy and healthy life. You deserve it.” Then he was gone, but Sharon could swear she heard the tinkle of a little bell.


End file.
